Abstract

Transparency policy can achieve the desired effects as long as there is a relationship between the supply of government transparency, implementation capacity, and social demand. Transparency is particularly important at the level of local governments, because they manage policies and programs that have direct effects on the quality of life of the population. Since 2007, Chile has a transparency public policy that prescribes active transparency, i.e. the provision of certain information in the websites of public services. In the case of Chile, the implementation of transparency policies has experienced difficulties in the municipalities and this study investigates the factors that impede the fulfillment of its goals. We argue that the difficulties are due to the command and control approach of the Chilean policy, where the emphasis is on the type of information that should provide municipalities, the lack of attention of various factors, including municipal and community contexts, complexities of operation of information systems and the social demand for transparency. We suggest that the social characteristics and political culture of the population are factors that could be influencing the limited results of-the policy. Our hypothesis proposes that transparency policies can have the desired effect, if there is a relationship between supply, implementation capacity and social demand. We conclude that in the phase of reformulation would be desirable to overcome the prescriptive command and control approach, focusing on the offer, and move towards a more comprehensive policy, of two bands, which consider the conditions of local contexts and demand.